Now Seeking members of the Council of Scribes

I am interested in hearing more of what the Lore Keepers responsibilities will be.

My guild title in UO was Lorekeeper. And that lead to my guild in Guildwars being called Keepers of Lore. And, well, keeping track of lore is what I do one the wiki after all.

So mark me down as applying.

 

Also, a clarification, as I've noted a bit of confusion on this point. You do NOT have to be a member of the Council of Scribes in order to submit works for Lore calls like Tales from the Vale. Any and all members of the community can write and submit something. Similarly, CoS members don't get priority selection, as that will be based on the quality and engagement of each piece of fiction individually. Council membership is for community members who want to take their participation in working with SotA Lore to the next level.

And as far as people signing away their rights to use their characters forever and ever... I'd like to avoid that as well, at least unless the CoS would like to troubleshoot a way to record-keep that. For now, I'd rather it be dealt with it on a case by case basis. And honestly, until some way to grant and make a record of permission is developed, I'll probably shy away from any stories that delve into complex relationships between player characters. There is plenty of other stuff to write about for this release.

 

I am interested in being a scribe.

 

Be sure to PM Winfield (and CC me) with your experience and specific area of interest, Lord Trady of Blix.

 

FireLotus, could you link some examples of writings, say poetry, that you would deem suitable for the SotA game world? I was thinking that Italian or Shakespearean sonnets would be the norm.

 

Great stuff, really liking this!

 

I would have loved to be part of this, if my writing skills were up to the standards.

However, if I may ask a question, what writing style will be adopted by this Council of Scribes?
Will it be like the current NPC dialogues - i.e. modern American? Or rather similar to the style used in Ultima V/VI/VII - i.e. a curious mix of Early Modern English and General American English? Or anything else?
I'd love to see an example!

 

As I recall, you had some nice stuff in the cave fable contest. You should definitely submit something.

 

i would love to participate in the LORE WRITING ... please let me know, this is my strong point, development & design not so much
thank you gina, regards Lord Gadget

 

I speculate that the main purpose of the council and the scribes will be to keep the widely-produced works tight, professional-looking and legitimate. Were I in charge, I wouldn't be inviting people to trample canon, but censoring people wouldn't be my priority - polishing up the collected works of our impressive community would be a fine contribution to our lasting in-and-out-of-game culture. If you're a rebel, there's still fan fiction and you may still print your own books in-game and distribute them in the normal fashion, no one's saying you can't use the printing press, but it is completely reasonable for the devs to copy and spawn the best works the community produces so that everyone can read them. I think of it like a literary magazine, anyone can contribute, and anyone can go on the website and share links to their writing sites, but the magazine is going to print the best while encouraging the rest to keep the participating in the community.
id

 

The following is a link to the completed version of book one of my stories.

http://tinyurl.com/nr9fm55

I certainly want to be able to publish my stories in game but I have already exceeded the word limit. I have tried to create a interesting story set as much as possible with what we know so far. As we get to know more the stories will get more tightly bound. I am not sure where this leaves me, do I post the stories here or some other website. Book two is underway.

 

I had plans to write large books too. 500 words or less seems very restrictive and I'm wondering if that will be the limit for all books in the game?

 

It would seem restrictive if you're limited to only one book...so just break up your novel into multi-volume books. As in Skyrim, it can be fun being a completist, collecting everything from The Wolf Queen (Books 1-8) to The Mythic Dawn Commentaries (1-4) -- or even The Lusty Argonian Maid (Volumes 1-2). Imagine the anguish I went through, searching days on end for that second volume!

 

If you enjoy writing, you should write.
Write in whatever style suits you.
I think there is probably an audience for any style.
Libraries should be filled with the voices of many authors from many different places and times.

 

I imagine there are technical and/or design reasons for the word limit which may or may not change. For now I should think nothing is written in stone as this was only just announced yesterday. There are few official answers this weekend. We'll know more next week after the council has had an opportunity to get things laid out and discuss concerns and questions.

 

Yes smack, I understand the concept of multiple volumes. Perhaps once several volumes are created there will be a way to merge them? That seems like a good way to avoid technical problems like allocating too much space for someone's nonsensical rant that was designed merely to fill up 300 pages.

 

Sure, being able to rebind books / merge them into a single larger volume would be a very useful and likely lucrative crafting skill. I think that's a great idea and maybe you can even split books later. The way I see books working in the game is that they are crafted from any number of pages (that you craft from wood). 5 page booklet? Sure, put 5 pages on the crafting station. 500 page novel? Yep, it can do that too. And when you're ready to make copies, it'll also cost you more at the Magic Printing Press depending on size of book too.

So I don't see this as a technical problem on their end as it is a resource / bandwidth problem. The scribes can only review so many entries and then it has to go to the Devs -- which may include the very busy Richard and Tracy -- for final approval as canon and to pre-populate the game with. If you don't limit the amount of content per entry, you're just setting yourself up to fail.

Having said that, you can write your 10,000 page manifesto and publish it yourself in-game without any review or approval. It simply won't be canon, and just as long as you can find a book vendor selling that large of a blank book or you commission one to be made.

 

You have my permission to bind my inscribed testaments in flesh if thee has the knowledge of such things.....*snorts*

 

Well, I didn't want to derail this thread by suggesting paper, or rather parchments, could also be made from human skin as it is currently done with animal skin...but I digress. Let's take that idea into the Crafting forum as a potential type of book that can be crafted in-game.

 

I almost shudder to suggest a good place to actually continue that conversation but since it's such a good segway for a shameless plug..

https://shroudoftheavatar.com/forum...-than-books-publishing-formats-options.12548/